Dange’s children throw tanturms – God Save the CPI(Marxist)

Long long ago when the CPI was the only communist party in India.

A man called S.A Dange was a predominant leader of the CPI, his claim to fame were the love letters , he wrote to the British officials, offering to become a British informer if he was
released from prison.

But what many do not know is that he wrote a book proclaiming that the entire wisdom of Karl Marx is derived from the Vaidik Vedanta !

Today Dange is dead but his children live on ,the filth and the rot in the CPI(Marxist) is the perfect breeding ground for mini-dange’s who masquerade as communists.

Now only God can save the CPI(Marxist) !

God Save The Party
Can Marxists seek divine blessings?

Joker Subhas Chakraborty

JAI Ma Tara. This invocation to goddess Kali has triggered off a heated debate in the CPI(M)—a party of ostensible non-believers—on God vs Marx. Or rather, on whether Marxists can seek divine blessings, even privately. The issue came out after Bengal’s transport minister, Subhas Chakraborty, visited the Kali temple at Tarapith, 300 km from Calcutta, on September 13 and offered puja. Photos of him praying at the temple and his statements reiterating his right to practise his religion have embarrassed the Marxists in West Bengal.

“Wherever I go, my name would suggest that first I am a Hindu and then a Brahmin. I can’t deny this,” he said. But there were more blasphemies—he said he is more comfortable with Indian traditions like pranam and namaskar than the lal salaam (red salute). He dragged in CPI(M) patriarch Jyoti Basu too: “Even Jyoti Basu visited a gurudwara with his head covered after Indira Gandhi’s assassination,” he said. Next he threatened to name CPI(M) leaders who practise their religion on the sly.

But what got the party’s goat was his assertion that the CPI(M) hadn’t been able to spread its influence beyond three states (West Bengal, Tripura and Kerala) as the party has failed to accommodate Indian values and traditions. “How else can you justify our presence in only three states with a population of 11 crore in a nation of over 100 crore people?” he asked. And, to add to the CPI(M)’s woes, state BJP chief Tathagata Roy praised him and offered him a berth in the party.

Censuring his protege, Jyoti Basu minced no words and said: “Whom does he see and worship? Does She (goddess Kali) exist? It would be better if he worshipped mankind.” Not to be silenced, Chakraborty exhorted workers in the transport sector to celebrate Vishwakarma Puja “with pomp and grandeur”. And then wrote in a Bengali journal that his mentor was a modern-day Krishna who delivers victory to those who are on his side. This was too much even for Basu; he went on to say that Chakraborty had lost his head. To which Chakraborty promptly retorted: “If I’m mad, why don’t they throw me out? Mad people cannot have any place in the party.”

However, despite such provocation, the CPI(M) hasn’t taken action against him. It indeed can’t, as doing so would, in the party’s analysis, anger Hindus. “A large number of Bengalis vote for us. But they’re not atheists. If any action were taken against Chakraborty, the Hindus would not like it,” a CPI(M) state secretariat member told Outlook.

Also, many leaders, including those in the party’s top bodies, won’t be able to muster the moral authority to argue for action against Chakraborty as they themselves practise their religion. Besides, Chakraborty has enormous influence in the North 24 Parganas district and in the CITU and transport unions.

Party hardliners say religion is Marxism’s antithesis and believers have no place in the party. But a majority feel that there’s no bar on Marxists practising religion privately. So, the compromise: the party won’t bar its members from performing religious rituals and festivities as long as it is behind closed doors.

Though not many Calcutta-based or senior state-level leaders practise their religion openly, those in the districts who form a majority in the party do so, and very openly too. In fact, CPI(M) leaders lead religious processions, CITU holds Vishwakarma pujas, teachers’ unions affiliated to the CPI(M) hold Saraswati pujas while the party’s local units support Durga pujas across the state. It’s indeed strange that for a party that puts a premium on discipline, such ‘indiscretions’ and acts of ‘indiscipline’ have gone unpunished. However, state secretary Biman Bose has now sent out advisories to members of the CPI(M) state committee, asking them not to associate themselves with community Durga pujas.The hardliners, though, want more than this and are asking for stricter measures. Senior party leader Benoy Konar says that members would have to decide if they are Marxists or believers.

Others say the party must move with the times and has to accommodate traditions and religious beliefs. If it does not, it will alienate sizeable sections of the people. Chakraborty may be seen as a maverick and a trouble-maker, but the issue that he has raised is one the party cannot easily ignore.

Link

Maoism:CPI(M)’s view

Source: FRONTLINE

`They can’t bring about social transformation’

Interview with Prakash Karat.

SANDEEP SAXENA

The organised Left has always been wary of the ways of the groups that call themselves naxalites. Some of the naxalite groups claim that they are the true revolutionaries and resort to terror tactics. In contrast, the organised Left, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in particular, aims to complete the task of democratic revolution through a broad class alliance – a people’s democratic front. CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat expressed his views to T.K. Rajalakshmi on the limitations of the methods and ideology of the proponents of an armed revolution. Excerpts:

The naxalite groups, which are functioning in the name of the CPI (Maoist), belong to a stream that cannot be considered Marxist. This is because their method and politics rely on anarchic violence directed at individuals and ordinary people. They work in the remote tribal areas because it allows them to use these as shelters for conducting their acts of individual violence. Devoid of politics based on the people, such tactics only help the ruling classes and the state. Naxalite violence is countered by state repression and the brunt is borne by ordinary people living in the areas where these groups operate. Groups such as the PWG [People's War Group] and the MCC [Maoist Communist Centre] cannot bring about any social transformation or change in the lives of the oppressed people. The CPI(M) will counter politically and ideologically the false posturing of such “revolutionary” activities. Given the wretched plight of the tribal people in the forest areas and the failure of the state to deliver even the minimum needs, some of these groups exploit the situation to gain a foothold. Eventually, their activities lead to no development in the areas but end up worsening the plight of the already suffering sections. If serious political work is done in these areas and sincere efforts are made to ensure the rights of the tribal people, such groups and their activities will get isolated.

In West Bengal, the armed squads of naxalites are being isolated by the CPI(M) by mobilising the people to assert their rights and to ensure that the administration pays due attention to their needs. We found that when this is sought to be done, the naxalite squads target the CPI(M) cadre and try to terrorise people. But they are actually getting isolated, for instance, in some areas such as parts of Midnapore. The tribal people are with the CPI(M) and the CPI [Communist Party of India]. Naxalites have not been able to win the mass base. They made some efforts earlier, but when we countered them they went back into the remote areas where they operate underground. Most of the State governments look at this only from the point of view of law and order. They are not willing to pay attention to or deal with the question of land, of the right of access to the forests, and of exploitation of the tribal people by the contractor-bureaucrat nexus.

CPM leader accused of molesting student

HOWRAH: With a senior CPM leader already in the dock over the Tapasi Mallick rape-murder case in Singur, another incident has come to the forefront in which CPM’s Munshirhat local committee secretary in Howrah’s Jagatballavpur, Basudeb Khotel, has been accused of molesting a five-year-old girl, his student, for over a month.

The incident has occurred just two days after two alleged CPM activists raped a woman and her two daughters in Diamond Harbour.

What’s even more shocking, the child repeatedly told her mother and grandmother of her ordeal during the past two weeks but they kept on ignoring her, apparently out of fear of Khotel’s political clout.

Her father finally lodged a police complaint on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the child – who was so traumatised that she could barely speak — gave her statement before a magistrate under Section 164 of CrPC. She was then sent for a medical test. Khotel initially denied the charges but then “apologised” to the family and the headmaster of the school before he went missing.

The victim, a Class I student, says Khotel – who was her teacher at Ballabhbati Primary School in Jagatballavpur – started physically abusing her about a month ago. During tiffin breaks he would take her to one of the empty classrooms and molest her. He also used to make her stay back after school hours and abuse her. The school is a few metres from the girl’s house.

About two weeks ago, the girl told her grandmother about it, but she did not pay much attention. Then, on July 11, she came home during tiffin break and told her mother that she was being molested by her class teacher. But her mother took her back to school. That same evening she broke down on returning home and told her mother that she won’t go to school again.

It was only then that the girl’s mother told her husband, a railway employee. But instead of going to the police station, he went to the school and met Khotel. The teacher denied the charges. But a little later, Khotel reportedly went to the headmaster Sukumar Dhyang and confessed.

“After the girl’s parents went back, he told us everything. I informed the school committee president. In the evening, we went to the girl’s parents with him where Khotel apologised to them,” said Dhyang.

CPM Howrah district secretary Sridip Bhattacharya said the zonal party committee will probe the matter.
Times of India

CPM is going through rough patch in its bastions

NEW DELHI: CPM never had it so bad in two of its traditional bastions. A comrade Suhrid Dutta from West Bengal is in jail for his alleged involvement in a girl’s murder in Singur while K Venugopal faces a vigilance probe for allegedly accepting Rs 1 crore as bribe in Kerala.

Between these two extremes, the party had big differences with CPI during the anti-encroachment drive in Munnar, Kerala.

Amidst all this, the party’s central leadership remained silent or reacted only when the situation went out of hand. Except for veteran Jyoti Basu who called the CBI anti-Marxist, not a single senior leader has opened up. Even when forced to react, they have either toed the Basu line alleging the CBI — which is probing the Singur case — is working at the behest of Congress or claim nothing would come out against Dutta.

But the panic has set in. Privately senior leaders admit these are not good times for the party. For instance in Bengal, they say, just when it looked that the controversy over Nandigram and Singur had blown away came the shocking revelation about CPM zonal committee head Dutta being allegedly involved in the murder of a girl. If all this is not enough, the names of some senior leaders are doing the rounds as being the mastermind
in the murder.

Explaining the central leadership’s silence, a senior leader says, “After being in power for three decades, the West Bengal party unit, especially those at the ground level, do not see politics as CPM espouses at the Centre. The state leadership feels holding on to power comes with a certain price which can be best dealt by them without any interference from the central leadership. They have grown too big.”
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